Dr. Chris Mackowski, professor of journalism and mass communication at St. Bonaventure University and the author and editor of more than two dozen books on the Civil War, has co-edited a new book on Ulysses S. Grant, who led Union armies to victory over the Confederacy in the Civil War and was later elected the nation’s 18th president.

 

“Grant at 200: Reconsidering the Life and Legacy of Ulysses S. Grant” (Savas Beatie, 2023), which Mackowski co-edited with Frank Scaturro, president of the Grant Monument Association, pulls together a collection of 16 essays from 12 of the country’s greatest Grant experts. 

 

Last year marked the bicentennial of Grant’s birth and the book serves as a capstone to a yearlong series of celebrations, events and symposia held across the nation by Grant scholars, historians and admirers.

 

Grant’s reputation has seen peaks and valleys since the Civil War, Mackowski said. In his day, Grant was the most famous American in the world and his 1885 funeral was the largest ever held in the country up to that point. But by the end of the century, Grant the general was slandered by his former Southern foes as a drunk and a butcher, while the reputation of Grant the president was tarnished by rampant corruption in his administration.

 

“It wasn’t until well into the 20th century that historians began a reexamination of Grant’s presidency. Now that he’s been getting a fresh look, people are discovering all sorts of wonderful things to like about him,” Mackowski said. “I like him because he was an excellent writer. As president, he did more for civil rights than anyone until Lyndon B. Johnson in the 1960s. And as general, of course, he won the war and saved the country.”

 

The book includes contributions from Frank J. Williams, past president of the Ulysses S. Grant Association; Ronald C. White, author of the bestselling Grant biography “American Ulysses;" Nicholas W. Sacco, historian at the Ulysses S. Grant Historic Site in St. Louis; Curt Fields, the country’s leading living Grant historian; and eight other Grant scholars and historians.

 

The book includes two essays by Mackowski, “The Myth of Grant’s Silence,” about Grant as a writer, and “Moments of Contingency and the Rise of Grant;” as well as a pair of essays by co-editor Scaturro.

 

It also includes original contributions from all six living U.S. presidents, as well as a contribution from Gen. Mark A. Milley, current chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; a never-before-published remembrance by the late Jack Kemp, former congressman and vice presidential nominee; and a note to Scaturro about Grant from former Secretary of State Colin Powell.

 

James M. McPherson, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning “Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era,” said the book offers “new information and astute insights about the personal life of this surprisingly complex and remarkable American.”

 

All proceeds from “Grant at 200” go to support the Ulysses S. Grant Association and the Grant Monument Association.

 

Mackowski has taught writing in St. Bonaventure’s Jandoli School of Communication since the fall of 2000. He is editor-in-chief of Emerging Civil War (www.emergingcivilwar.com). 

 

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About the University: The nation’s first Franciscan university, St. Bonaventure University is a community committed to transforming the lives of our students inside and outside the classroom, inspiring in them a lifelong commitment to service and citizenship. St. Bonaventure was named the #5 regional university value in the North in U.S. News and World Report’s 2022 college rankings edition.

 

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